From: Alto Adige, Italy
Varietal: Müller Thurgau
Taste: An absolute live wire of a white grown at high elevation in the shadow of jagged Dolomite peaks, Nössing’s Müller features a lustrous perfume bursting with exotic aromas of guava, passion fruit, lime, and wildflowers. This sleek, bracing mineral bomb epitomizes mountain refreshment in its purest form.
—Anthony Lynch
Pairing: Pair it with smoked salmon, citrus-forward salads, Greek salads, Caesar salad with grilled chicken breast, creamy risottos, or desserts like lemon tart or pear galette. Other ideas include pairing this with mushroom tarts, roasted pork, or poultry, and Vietnamese, Japanese, or Thai cuisine.
About. In the steep, sun-drenched slopes of Italy’s northernmost wine region, Manni Nössing is making some of the country’s most compelling white wines. Based in the Valle Isarco (Eisackthal in German), a narrow, mountainous stretch of the Alto Adige, Nössing farms just six hectares of vines—but the results are extraordinary.
Manni's wines reflect the region’s Alpine clarity. Grown on glacial soils at elevations up to 800 meters, his whites—Kerner, Sylvaner, Grüner Veltliner, Riesling, and more—are sharply etched, mineral, and electric. They hum with freshness yet have a surprising depth and texture thanks to thoughtful lees aging and, in the case of his Veltliner, a touch of time in acacia barrels.
Having bottled his own wines only since 2000, Manni represents a new generation of independent growers in a region once dominated by cooperatives. His philosophy is simple: let the grapes speak. No green harvesting, no leaf pulling—he’s adamant about protecting his fruit from excessive sun to preserve acidity and balance. “My grapes are happy in the shade,” he says.
Kerner, a Riesling-Schiava cross, is his flagship, and under Manni’s hands, it becomes something crystalline and precise, driven, but never austere. The style is all about drinkability and terroir, not oak or over-extraction. As critic Ian d’Agata puts it, “all his wines are so good that it’s virtually impossible to pick the best of the lot.”
Manni Nössing may be understated, but his wines are anything but. They’re bright, pure, and quietly brilliant—just like the winemaker himself.
